You made two beautiful videos of your new layout. It is not only interesting to watch, but also it is well filmed. Congratulations and thank you for sharing with us.

I have a question: is your layout entirely digital, or do you have same analog sections? I am asking because you showed a few locomotives from the sixties or so, like the DB green shunter. As for your two cranes, you did a wonderful job in restoring them. They really add something to your layout.

Please keep making more videos!

Regards,

Pierre

Pierre:

Thanks for the kind words. My videos are still a work in progress but I appreciate the compliments. With regard to your question about my layout, it is all digital. I have converted all of my locomotives. I used a combination of ESU Lokpilot and LokSound decoders and permanent magnets. I find that the existing motors work really well with the ESU decoders and I don't need to upgrade to the 5 pole motors (just my opinion).

With regard to the cranes, one was like new out of the box, even though it was 40 plus years old. The other one was bought on eBay and was a wreck that had to be taken completely apart, cleaned, unbent, restrung, rewired in some parts and repainted. I am very pleased with the results. The only thing I haven't done is replace the piece that connects the crane arm to the cab, you can't see it but it is actually a piece of coat hanger that I painted and and bent so that it works just as the original. One of these days I plan on buying a replacement part for it.

Thanks, I can get each PVC coupling for about $3 at Home Depot and they have a bunch of different diameters. I simply sand down the edges and paint with flat black or with flat white and then cut the tops, paint them and glue them in place and I am all set. Instant tank farm.

With regard to the cranes, I must say when I have visitors they love them, the kids can play with them and the adults are amazed that they run. They have turned out to be a real crowd pleaser and alot of fun.

Thanks for the compliment Piet. Today I did some work on the lights for the town and the station area. I put up some street lights as well as put lights in some of the buildings. I still have more work to do but it is progressing and I am pleased with the outcome so far.

I saw you used an exposure time of 0,8 sec and an aperture of 2,8.To create a more nightly atmosphere you could use a smaller aperture (like 16 or higher) and a longer exposure time.Shut of the lights after 2 or 3 seconds (maybe less). I thinks the outcome may surprise you.

Thanks for the comments. After I installed everything that is something I am considering, installing a rheostat to drop the voltage on the street lamps a bit. All my lights are run off of an older big blue Marklin 30 VA transformer. To be honest I am just happy to have lights. Piet, as far as exposures and timing for my camera I have no Idea how to do that, I will check into that, thanks for the suggestion.

Why not plug the active (yellow) into the Bahn (red) socket instead, that will make the transformator act as a rheostat (trimpot, or variable resistor - depending on where you are). And leave the Ground (Brown) as is. Just an idea.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I could plug the lights in to the post for the track and use that to turn the voltage down but that would reduce the lighting on everything and I like some of the lights bright. I think I will put something in between the street lights and the wire bus and turn the lights down that way. We shall see, right now I am just happy to have lights.

Thanks for the comments. After I installed everything that is something I am considering, installing a rheostat to drop the voltage on the street lamps a bit. All my lights are run off of an older big blue Marklin 30 VA transformer. To be honest I am just happy to have lights. Piet, as far as exposures and timing for my camera I have no Idea how to do that, I will check into that, thanks for the suggestion.

Chris

Hi Chris,I use the Märklin transformer as a rheostat for dimming the light. I connect the light with B on the transformer (normally current for the tracks) and dim the lights.

Thanks Joe and Wolf for the comments. I just ordered some very small fiber optics cable and some modified blue LEDs, so the next step for the town scene is to light up all of the headlights and then I want to make either an accident scene or fire scene with my emergency vehicles and I will light up the emergency lights. I tried this on the last layout and wasn't completely happy so I am hoping to do a better job this time.

Finished some decoder conversions today on engines I just bought off of eBay. I took a quick video of them running through the passenger station on my layout. You will see two V200's and one BR 212. One of the V200's has sound. All the decoders are ESU and I kept the 3 pole motors in each of the engines, the only change was to use LEDs for lighting and to add the permanent magnet. I hope you like.

Finished some decoder conversions today on engines I just bought off of eBay. I took a quick video of them running through the passenger station on my layout. You will see two V200's and one BR 212. One of the V200's has sound. All the decoders are ESU and I kept the 3 pole motors in each of the engines, the only change was to use LEDs for lighting and to add the permanent magnet. I hope you like.

Chris

Very nice looking V200's Chris.

Welcome to the V200 (and their offsprings) Club

Hope you have many years of enjoyment out of them, I know I have out of mine

Finished some decoder conversions today on engines I just bought off of eBay. I took a quick video of them running through the passenger station on my layout. You will see two V200's and one BR 212. One of the V200's has sound. All the decoders are ESU and I kept the 3 pole motors in each of the engines, the only change was to use LEDs for lighting and to add the permanent magnet. I hope you like.

Chris

Very nice looking V200's Chris.

Welcome to the V200 (and their offsprings) Club

Hope you have many years of enjoyment out of them, I know I have out of mine

Thanks Dusan, I must say that after buying two of them and seeing them run on my layout I am happy to have joined the club. Next on my list is a Blue and Cream one, I will be looking on eBay.

Here is another video of the layout. I have added catenary to the layout and added another engine, a BR 216, to my roster. You will also see in the middle of the video the lighting of my emergency vehicles. I ended up making a simple circuit I found on the internet that gave me a great flash rate and found some perfectly sized LEDs for the blue emergency lights.

Thanks for the comments. I am adding a few additional pictures showing some engines and the catenary in place. For those who are zealots about catenary, I am not running my trains on them and I did indeed bend the catenary to match the curves, I was going for the overall look and feel of an electified line. My biggest desire was to have it up on the routes where I plan to run my electrics, I am pleased with how it turned out.

Thanks Marco. Sorry it took me so long to respond. I just posted a new video on youtube, the link is below. I think the room was a little dark so things could look a bit better. Anyway, you can see a few of my engines traveling through my station area. Since the last time I posted about my layout I have added several engines, including a Blue E 41, and a BR 50. Both have ESU LokPilot 4 chips with the original 3 pole motors in them. In addition you will see a BR 212, V200, BR 23, an Italian Steam Engine, a BR 38 as well as my green E 41.

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